


Salt and Sugar, Sugar and Salt

by Maerissa



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baking, Cooking, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25292806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maerissa/pseuds/Maerissa
Summary: “...Isn’t chocolate more of a Valentine’s thing?”“Yeah, probably,” Catherine chimed in, “but Shamir already got me the best Valentine’s gift I could have asked for. I had to pay her back somehow.”"As did Felix," Dimitri smiled, and thought back on what was still doubtlessly the best breakfast he'd had in his life. “May I ask what she got you?”“Oh, a sword.”Dimitri clapped his hands together and mouthedOf coursewith a look of honest realization on his face, straining to write a mental note for next year’s Valentine’s.Dimitri is up far too early on White Day with one goal: to finish baking a tray of brownies before his boyfriend gets out of bed.
Relationships: Catherine/Shamir Nevrand, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Catherine, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Salt and Sugar, Sugar and Salt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nyoggets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyoggets/gifts).



_4:45am._ Dimitri’s eye had dwelled on the alarm clock’s faint blue light enough that the shapes of the numbers had almost imprinted in his mind, abstract blueish outlines dancing around his field of vision whenever he looked away. He never really expected to get much rest around these hours of the night. In high school, he’d used to stock up on books and extra credit classwork, so he could spend these otherwise useless small hours reading and studying just to keep his thoughts from running off in bad directions. Nowadays, though, Dimitri’s after-midnight priority was usually found clinging firmly to him, arms tucked securely around his waist.

Felix had insisted on Dimitri keeping up his high school habits – something along the lines of “do whatever keeps your boar brain busy” – but it hadn’t taken long for Dimitri to figure out that his boyfriend slept far, far more peacefully when Dimitri was there next to him. And although Felix would grumble about it just about every night, Dimitri had found that the drowsier he got, the softer and clingier he’d become. It had almost become a nightly routine for a half-asleep Felix to nudge himself closer to Dimitri, nestle his face against Dimitri’s arm, and sleepily pull his arm around his waist – which he’d never admit to the morning after, Dimitri thought to himself with an adoring chuckle.

This night, however, Dimitri’s thoughts were running faster than usual for an unusually wholesome reason. He grabbed one of their huge stuffed sharks from the foot end of the king-size, slowly and carefully lifted the arm that the snoozing Felix had trapped him underneath, and propped the shark up in his place. Making sure Felix was still sleeping soundly, he slid his legs off the edge off the bed and slowly got up.

Leaving Felix alone in their bed – albeit with soft sea predator company – always sent pangs of guilt through Dimitri’s body so strong that he could feel his muscles tense up. The last glance he afforded himself of his boyfriend’s precious sleeping face before leaving the room was far too long to justify, but there was no time to dwell any further.

Tomorrow – well, today – was March 14th, and Dimitri was ready for payback.

* * *

The recipe was already printed out and securely folded away in the dorm kitchen’s cookie jar – a place he knew Felix would never touch willingly. Ashe had recommended him a recipe site a while ago, and Dimitri had spent the better part of an hour first finding it in his myriad of bookmarks, then browsing through pastries and tarts until he found what seemed like the perfect one. Salted-caramel swirl brownies: chocolatey (of course), simple enough that he felt comfortable making them even without tasting, and hopefully salty enough to distract Felix from the sweetness of the chocolate.

He unfolded the recipe and went through the ingredient list item by item, grabbing things from the cupboards as he went along. Flour, cocoa, chocolate, a fresh carton of eggs, caramel chips Annette had brought him for the occasion, salt– _salt_ ––

Dimitri reached as far as he could into the cupboard, but the salt was nowhere to be found. Could Ingrid have forgotten to stock up? He checked the bowl of sea salt for seasoning next to the stove as well, but that contained nowhere near what the recipe demanded. If Sylvain had been awake, Dimitri thought, he would’ve no doubt called out the irony of a household with both Felix and Ingrid in it lacking salt, of all things. That thought made him all the happier that Sylvain wasn’t around after all.

The missing salt was putting a spanner in his plans, though. All stores near the dorm were still closed, and he certainly wasn’t going to go around waking any of his coursemates up in person. He considered switching to a recipe without the salted caramel, but was Felix really going to be fine with that? Not that he could really predict anything about Felix’s palate, but based on how he’d reacted when Sylvain had flirtily offered him half of the sickly-sweet-looking cake slice he’d grabbed from the faculty kitchen, he–

_Ah._ Of course, if he had no other choice… Dimitri rushed over to the fridge to see if Sylvain had left the door code to the staff corridor up. He scanned through passive-aggressive sticky notes from Ingrid about kitchen maintenance, polaroids from last summer’s beach outings and a handful of “sword” magnets sorted out from their fridge poetry set, before his eye finally caught on a four-digit code written down in plain red marker, framed by a doodled heart and some kind of smug-looking smiley magnet. _That has to be it_ , he reassured himself, and repeated the code quietly to himself as he pulled a thin coat from the rack and made his way out into the chilly spring morning air.

* * *

The rush of running halfway around the complex, cold air filling his lungs, was numbing the sense of shame that Dimitri was sure he should have been feeling about sneaking into faculty rooms at 5am. Right now, though, all he could think about was how grateful he was for Sylvain’s occasional “flings” with the health administrator. _I ought to save him a brownie for this_ , he mused, quickly typing in Sylvain’s door code on the keypad. Of course, he’d already resolved to save his entire dorm at least a couple brownies each.

The door unlocked, and he snuck inside with slightly hesitant steps. He wasn’t particularly worried about getting caught – he had noticed the faculty kitchen window looked lit up from the outside, but given how easily he had managed to get through the door, he was happy to assume sheer carelessness was behind that as well. Nevertheless, he made sure to let the door close behind him as quietly as possible. 

Once he'd found the faculty kitchen in the dim, narrow hallway, he whispered a quiet prayer for salt, then opened the kitchen door to find–

“Wh- ah, Coach Cassandra! I–”

“Dimitri! Great timing. Taste this batter for me, would you?”

Dimitri’s eye flickered down to his wristwatch, and then back up to meet the coach’s unbothered gaze. He wasn’t mistaken; it was definitely past 5am, and there she stood, arm idly stretched out with a filled tasting spoon in her hand. Dimitri had to take a second to compose himself and process what she’d asked him.

“Ah, I might not be much use in that regard, I’m afraid,” he laughed, only slightly intimidated. “Coach Cassandra, I was just–”

“Catherine's fine. Or just Cath, actually,” she interjected again. “Anyway, if you didn’t come to taste test for me, why are you here this early in the morning?”

Dimitri desperately wanted to return the question, but relented. “I, ah… was just about to start preparing a batch of brownies, but we didn't seem to have any salt in our kitchen, so I...”

Catherine's grin widened as she pulled her arm back and tilted the mixing bowl in front of her forward, revealing what was clearly the start of a brownie batter. Her grin quickly faded again as the batter nearly escaped the bowl in the process.

“Damn, lucky coincidence then!” she said, and flicked the bowl back towards her to rescue the runaway batter. “It’s probably not supposed to be this… thin, though. You don’t happen to have some extra flour on you, right?”

“Of course, one moment!” Dimitri replied, fully prepared to ignore how bizarre everything about the past minute had been, and turned on his heel to hurry back to the dorm for ingredients.

* * *

Catherine couldn’t help but chuckle as Dimitri methodically unpacked the overstuffed tote bag he’d borrowed from Ingrid’s stash (quietly praying this wasn’t another “irreplaceable limited edition concert tote” like last time).

“Heh, did you bring your entire kitchen with you?”

“I just wanted to make sure we had everything we needed. I wouldn’t want to run back and disturb my dormmates again,” he replied as he carefully set down the full carton of eggs on the faculty kitchen counter.

“As considerate as they say, huh,” Catherine smiled back at him and tossed him a rolled-up apron. “Well, we’re going to need to double the recipe anyway, so may as well be on the safe side.”

Dimitri unrolled the apron and tied the straps around his neck and waist, chuckling to himself at its bold teal and white fish print. _Of course_ , he mused, coming up with a handful of faculty members who seemed equally likely to have bought this for the shared kitchen.

Catherine flashed a thumbs up at the fish-clad Dimitri. “Looking good!”

“...Hah, the shape is flattering,” Dimitri courteously responded, trying not to let his mind stray to the thought of Felix in the same adorable fish-print apron. Or, perhaps, in nothing _but_ the apron. He snapped right back to attention, cheeks flushing.

“Anyway, let’s get to work. I probably melted too much chocolate in here to start with, so you can just double up the other wet ingredients in my bowl.”

Biting the inside of his cheek to rid himself of the lingering Felix thoughts, Dimitri nodded and started cracking eggs one by one into the bowl, Catherine deftly whipping them into the deep brown mixture as he dropped them in.

“By the way,” Catherine started and glanced to the side, “if you brought any extra butter you wanted to add, you should probably get that in here now." She paused and noticed the confused look on Dimitri's face, then kept going, unbothered. "Grab your own bowl, though – not about to tell on you, obviously, but I'm not making those tonight.” 

It took him a while to realize what she was talking about, and when he connected the dots, his expression changed from confusion to flustered shock in an instant.

"I– No, Coach Cass–Cath, that isn’t–” he sputtered, trying to regain his composure. “I know it is the middle of the night, and–” (at this point it had fully occurred to him just how suspicious he must have seemed) “–and I know of the… reputation of brownies, but this is absolutely nothing like that! It’s… actually for a White Day gift,” he finally admitted, unsure whether that might actually have been more embarrassing to say out loud than the assumption Catherine had apparently made.

“Ha, another coincidence, then!” she chuckled, eyes focused on pouring out the right amount of sugar to add to the mix.

“Ah, you mean you’re…” Everything started to come together and make sense in Dimitri’s head, although he hadn’t expected Catherine and her partner to be the type to exchange gifts with each other at all, let alone for love-themed holidays. While he had been doing a good job so far of ignoring the reasons Catherine might have been up this late baking, knowing she was here was out of love as well made him feel oddly comforted.

They measured out ingredients in comfortable quiet for a while, until Catherine broke the silence. 

“Hey, does this look… clumpy to you?”

As Dimitri peered down into the bowl they were pouring flour into, he did notice rough clumps forming in the batter.

“Hm, indeed. Do you think whisking more vigorously might help?”

“Knock yourself out,” Catherine said, and handed the whisk to him. She quickly started reconsidering her words as Dimitri began whisking with all he had, putting enough force into his motions to send drops of brownie mix flying in the air, splattering on the kitchen wall beside them. Her grabbing his shoulder was enough for him to stop whisking before more batter escaped, and he put the still-clumpy bowl down sheepishly.

“...So that didn’t help,” she sighed. “Do we just bake it off like this, then?”

Dimitri’s face lit up, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Ah, actually, there is another trick that I’ve found useful for situations like this...”

* * *

“Is– _yawn_ – is everything alright, Dimitri? There’s… no emergency, right?”

Ashe rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and spoke slowly in a hushed tone, his face only illuminated by the light of the screen.

“Oh! No, not at all! We’re sorry for disturbing you this early, but Cath and I are having some baking troubles, and we thought you might be able to help us.” Dimitri’s voice was coming through slightly too loud, and Ashe quickly lowered the volume both to save his own still-waking-up ears and to let Caspar keep snoozing in peace beside him.

“You’re… baking at–” (he swiped his finger across the screen to show the time) “–5am? And who’s Ca–”

As Ashe peered closer at the dimmed screen and realized who was standing next to the apron-clad Dimitri, his squinting eyes went wide open. “C-coach Cassandra?”

Catherine sighed on the other end. “Just Cath is fine,” she repeated as Ashe scrambled to cover up his kitten-print pajamas with his blanket, nearly pulling it off of Caspar in the process.

“Anyhow,” Dimitri continued over Ashe’s flustering, “we were in the process of making a brownie batter and these clumps started forming...” He tilted his phone down to show Ashe the bowl, and ran the whisk through the batter a couple of times to show the clumps more clearly.

Ashe leaned in closer to the screen, relieved that he at least wasn’t visible to the others as long as the camera was pointed down. “Oh, I... think I know what’s wrong! Did you sift the flour before putting it in?”

“Sift it?” He could sense the confused looks on their faces just through Dimitri’s voice.

“Yeah! I learned this from Lysithea; when you add dry ingredients like flour or cocoa to a batter you should sift them through a sieve.” He paused for a second, suddenly worrying he’d come off as bossy or patronizing to these people he (both literally and figuratively) looked up to so much. “...Did you, um, already add all the dry ingredients?”

Dimitri’s response was barely audible through the clanging of what Ashe guessed was Catherine rummaging through kitchen drawers for a sieve. “Ah, we had only just started adding the flour, so...”

Ashe barely had time to breathe out in relief before he heard Catherine raise her voice from a distance. “Hang on, didn’t we throw in all the sugar already? Fuc–”

“Oh, no, that’s fine!” Ashe cut in, unable to stop himself. “Sugar is… actually considered a wet ingredient, usually.”

The camera panned back to Dimitri’s face, looking understandably lost at this new information. “...Ah, I see. Wet… sugar. But–”

“Hey, now,” Catherine interrupted, turning around from her sieve search in the background. “No questioning the expert in the room, Dimitri.”

For some reason, hearing that from her of all people put Ashe almost completely at ease. Look up to them as he might; right now he really was the one with the most experience, and 5am or not, he was going to make sure these brownies would turn out as delicious as they could possibly be.

* * *

Assembling the rest of the batter was easy under Ashe’s still-sleepy guidance, and before they knew it they had two sheet pans of brownies baking in the oven, complete with delicate salted-caramel swirls. The sea salt topping that Ashe had suggested at the end was hopefully going to entice Felix more than it intimidated him, Dimitri prayed.

Him and Catherine had pulled up chairs and sat down at the small faculty kitchen table, propping up Dimitri’s phone against the salt shaker, and were happily chatting away as they waited for their brownies to finish baking.

“By the way,” Ashe asked, having to voice the question that had been burning in his mind since Dimitri had called. “Can I… ask why you’re both up making brownies this early? It’s not–”

“Ah, well! Tomorrow – or, well, today – is White Day,” Dimitri explained, as if that made small-hours brownie making seem like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

“Well, yeah, but… isn’t chocolate more of a Valentine’s thing?”

“Yeah, probably,” Catherine chimed in, “but Shamir already got me the best Valentine’s gift I could have asked for. I had to pay her back somehow.”

"As did Felix," Dimitri smiled, and thought back on what was still doubtlessly the best breakfast he'd had in his life. “May I ask what she got you?”

“Oh, a sword.”

Dimitri clapped his hands together and mouthed _Of course_ with a look of honest realization on his face, straining to write a mental note for next year’s Valentine’s. Ashe looked on through the camera in utter disbelief. _I guess_ , he thought to himself, _with these two..._  
As much as he absolutely wouldn’t dare say it in front of Catherine, the mental image of the stoic archery teacher unceremoniously handing her partner a Valentine’s sword checked out for sure. And if anyone could accept a gift like that, surely it would be her or Felix–

“What about you, Ashe?”

Dimitri’s voice broke his train of thought, and sent him flustering again. “Are you making anything in particular for the occasion?”

“Well…,” Ashe laughed nervously. “The others have to live with my cooking and baking most days anyway, so I wouldn’t want to burden them even more...”

“That kind of life sounds amazing. I’m jealous, honestly,” Catherine cut in, without a thought to how much hearing that from her would fluster Ashe. His desperate attempts to think of a humble way to reply were mercifully cut short by the oven timer going off, its shrill ringing getting Dimitri to fly up in a hurry to stop the whole building getting woken up.

* * *

Despite using up most of the ingredients he had brought, Dimitri’s tote bag was far from empty as he headed back from the faculty kitchen – it almost felt fuller than before, stuffed with wrapped-up brownie packages of various sizes. He’d asked Catherine for help with writing nametags, but her handwriting had turned out to be just as bad as Dimitri’s. He hoped they’d be readable anyway, or he’d just have to walk around and deliver them in person – not that he wouldn’t have preferred doing that in the first place.

The biggest package was reserved for Ashe and his housemates, as thanks for rescuing their brownie efforts. Catherine had even insisted he add in some of hers, “you know, in case mine turned out better”. He considered taking the long route by Ashe’s place straight away, but decided against it when he noticed the sun still hadn’t risen completely. _He deserves a little rest before this treat, at least_ , Dimitri chuckled to himself as he made his way back up to his own dorm.

He put the leftover ingredients and Ingrid and Sylvain’s brownie packages on the kitchen counter – they probably wouldn’t be up for another bit, and they weren’t his first priority right now anyway – and snuck back into his bedroom, praying Felix was still comfortable in bed. He hadn’t thought through how to serve the brownies to his boyfriend properly; Ashe or Annette would probably have insisted that he at least try with the plating, but the part of him that just _had_ to see Felix’s face again was much louder than either of their voices.

To his delight, Felix was still fast asleep, and had wrapped himself even closer around the shark, face half buried. Waking him up in this state would be nothing but cruel, he thought, both to Felix and to Dimitri himself, so he saw no choice but to change back into pajama pants and creep back into bed. He left the brownies on the nightstand, with a kitchen knife and a couple of sword-shaped toothpicks just in case he could convince a sleepy Felix to have breakfast in bed, like Felix had done for him. Right now, though, all he could think about was sneaking back in under the covers, wrapping his arm around Felix and cuddling up to their shark on the other side, pressing it between their bodies.

It just took a couple of seconds for Felix’s sleepy warmth to seep into Dimitri. He could feel himself relaxing, his breathing slowing. Without thinking about it, he leaned in a bit further to softly kiss Felix’s forehead, and didn’t feel any particular urge to move his head away afterwards.

Maybe right here, where he felt most at home, he could finally feel his guard letting itself down. 

Maybe, he thought, he could finally get some rest. 

**Author's Note:**

> maybe in the next dimilix fic i write, i'll have dimitri and felix say a line to each other for a change sdfhj  
> happy birthday and happy anniversary to my very dearest [nyoggets](https://twitter.com/nyoggets), whose shared loose dorm life AU this story, as well as my [recipe fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701079) and her precious [Felix-focused cooking fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21759190), is set in. 💕
> 
> i'm also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/maerissa_) sometimes!


End file.
